I was ecstatic the first time I used Stack Overflow to ask a programming question about the code that goes into Stack Overflow. And I was even more thrilled when I performed a programming related search that returned a useful Stack Overflow link in the results. This is “dogfooding” at its best.

Dogfood. There’s nothing more delicious. Mmm, mmm good!

Well, I’m proud to announce that we’ve reached yet another dogfooding milestone — we’re thinking of hiring another programmer to work on Stack Overflow … through Stack Overflow Careers. Naturally.

Now, this will just be a part-time gig to start. It’s difficult to expand the Stack Overflow team because we all have the unusual benefit of extensive prior work history together. Jarrod and Geoff knew what they were getting into when they signed up — we’re like a happy little dysfunctional family. It’s highly likely this will turn into a full time thing, but we need some time to get to know each other first.

Some broad guidelines:

Everyone on the SO team works remotely from home, and sets their own schedule (mostly). We communicate through Skype and email, so you can be anywhere in the world. Good communication skills and sweet internet connection are of course a must.

If you are in any way averse to the utility of an expedient hack, it is unlikely we’re the right team for you. We appreciate elegance and continual refactoring as much as the next developer, but we love results even more.

We will be looking for people with some kind of track record on the public internet. Doesn’t have to be an empire, but we want to see evidence of someone who … do I really have to say it? … is Smart and Gets Things Done.

While we are platform agnostic, the bulk of our work runs on Windows Server 2008, is written in C# 3.5 / ASP.NET MVC, and talks to SQL Server 2008. If any of that stuff is a turn-off, we’re not the team for you.

Anyway, if you’d like to work on Stack Overflow with us, and the above guidelines seem reasonable — I encourage you to list your CV at Stack Overflow Careers. Along with many other employers, that’s where we will be looking. Because as responsible software developers, we gotta eat our own dogfood.

I wonder if it would be better to hire a part time designer/template architect and a part time server admin/scale/optimization expert.

Seems that each member of your team wears many hats: designer, community manager, programmer, on call server administrator, CSS bug chaser, StackExchange color schemer, etc. Perhaps having your existing programmers who are already up to speed focus on programming would be more effective.

Recently on the podcast you discussed why you don’t really believe in dedicated DB admins, wonder if you think the same about dedicated front end and backend roles too.

Does it need to be a paid CV listing? Just wondering, since I’m not US based, so don’t really see much point in paying to file my CV when 99% of jobs would be irrelevant to me. (however this job fits in the 1% that would be a perfect fit for me).

Stackoverflow reminds me of a (dys)functional family. Joel is like the military father, methodical and controlling. Jeff is the motherly protector, able to soothe bouts of domestic violence. Jarrod and Geoff are “teh abused” and get to trade stories about how Joel almost ripped someone’s head off or the few times Jeff joined in for the beatings. Where moderators are like mooching cousins squatting at your place, eating you out of house and home.

Someone has the misfortune of being adopted into this ragtag bunch of misfits? The opportunity conjures up an image of you looking for the Sloth to your Chunk. Sign me up please. I like Baby Ruth but my superman t-shirt is being washed at the moment.http://careers.stackoverflow.com/w0rd-driven

How willing are you to adapt to a new person? Fit goes both ways and you might learn/improve by hiring someone who is strong in an area in which your current team members might be weak. For instance, would you be willing to hire someone who has a higher regard for unit testing? Maybe you could turn some of that “dogfood” into “hamburger”, or even “filet mignon.”

I shoulda chose the more fitting yet albeit retarded metaphor like the distant great-aunt that also uses her car to drive your sick mom to the doctor. The only weird things about her are she smells like farts and insists on sleeping with your youngest in their bed. ;>

Calling mods a bum was coming on a little too strong & not the direction I wanted at all. My intentions were more rainbows and pink ponies, I swears. The one thing I don’t want to project is a sense of misunderstanding towards the role of moderation in a place like this.

> @Kevin Montrose says: Upon further thought, I wonder how close to proper dog-fooding this really is. Its sort of like Joel asking a question on SO, the system responds differently than it would otherwise.

> I mean, there are 6 applications in the comments. How common is that?

> Plus it prompts people to revise their CVs to conform with this searching.

That’s all true…but I think this *is* how the job search goes. If I want a specific job, I tailor my resume/CV to that job. If I saw a job for some other company that indicated they use SO-Careers, I’d do the same thing.

I think the point of an evidence-based, searchable CV is that the emphasis on what you know goes up while the emphasis on who you know goes down.

As most of the others here, I would love the opportunity to work on such a great site, with this strong team. Though I have had less time to actively spend on the site, I think you’ll find that I do have special skills that will give you an advantadge with me.
(Amongst others, I’d been a code security consultant for a few years – even tho that sounds like a disadvantadge ;) )